But watching the incident again on this video, you can tell that once the insult has been said that Zidane had made up his mind to pole-axe the Italian. He runs past Materazzi to get a good enough distance, turns and then attacks the defender.

I’ve always know Materazzi was a dirty defender – hell, he was sent off several times at his brief time at Everton! But as this video shows he doesn’t mind trying to hack a players head off!

Looking at the clips of Shevchenko I’m not surprised he’s moved to the Premiership!

But on a serious note who is the real villain here?

Yes, if Materazzi said something which was racist or personal then I suppose Zidane had a right to retaliate but with a vicious head-butt?

And doesn’t taunting happen all the time on the football pitch? Ian Wright has talked many times about opposing defenders would wind him up but that just motivated him to score goals. And I’m sure the insults Wrighty received were personal and occassionally racist… (you can ask the ‘Great Dane’ about that one).

In the grand scheme of things you could hardly say that Zidane cost France the World Cup – he got sent off when penalties were inevitable and the only miss France actually had was a shot that hit the underside of the bar from David Trezeguet who would have been certain to take a spot kick anyway.

Zidane probably thought “F*ck this, the Italian twat has been taunting he throughout the whole game with racism and it looks like it’s penalties anyway so I’ll pole-axe this m*therf*cker and show him…”

People have said that Zidane has a tendency to go over the top and although it’s reported that he’s had 14 red cards in his career I cannot really think of an incident in recently times that was that violent.

In fact I can’t think of any.

But the question is regardless of what was said – did Zidane have the right to attack another player on the football pitch?

Surely if that was the case then all hell would break loose every week across the footballing world!

14 thoughts on “Who’s The Villain: Zidane or Materazzi?”

the real question is, how do you punish a player who’s retiring anyway? given that teh usual 3 match ban is irrelevant he need some sort of punishment. otherwise all retiring players will take the change to nobble someone in theri last game

It seems that FIFA (and the FA) and their idiot referees are always too keen to punish retaliation but the agent provocateur always gets away scot free. If the governing bodies were that keen to stamp out racialism and provocation in football they might look into these incidents a little deeper and ban the likes of Materazzi too. There is no way that Zidane would have done what he did had the Italian not seriously insulted and offended him. The technology is available with lip readers etc., so ban Materazzi for ruining the last match of one of the greatest footballers ever.

If zidane stuck up for his values in an important way which shows the world you cant say those things then it was a good thing. he knew it was the last few minutes of his last game so could not be punished (in a footballing sense) so he thought its time to sort this idiot out.
I applaud zidane for the fact that he stood up for what is right. sure the sending off was also inevitable but the sacrafice was worth it.

If zidane did not head butt but instead moans about a racist comment after the match no-one gives it 2 seconds thought. his actions have brought the issue right to the surface for days/weeks/months.

There isn’t any conclusive evidence what exactly was said – I’ll read several sources that said it was something to do with “Your headers are too soft…” or something so Zidane just head-butted him to show they weren’t soft.

So if that’s what was said, and Materazzi denies saying anything personal or racist then Zidane is just a nutter!

Put in another way, if ZZ is throwing insults to that idiot, or anyone of the italian team, would they do the same? If anyone insults anyone close to me, i would not hesitate to drive a big glass bottle to their heads…

ZZ should have kept his cool knowing that Materazzi was winding him up. He should have waited for the end of the game to act on the provocation. This kind of trash talk must be going on all the time so I blame ZZ for lack of self control.

I tend to agree with TT, although perhaps without the broken bottle.
I played Rugby for a lot of years @ a good level (mainly because I was shit @ football), & this was part of my armoury winding-up the opposition when ever I could to put them off there game & I was good @ it, but it all depends on boundaries.
Its one thing to tell a player he’s a bag of shit as a player, but you never get personal (unless there ugly) or you leave yourself open to the odd nut here & there.
& if Materazzi has said what has been reported ZZ should have put it on his nose (I would have).
I don’t go with the ZZ being a nutter theory, because Iâ€™m sure we would have seen evidence of that before now!!!

As every men in the world, ZZ have pride, a limit nobody should cross it. Let’s face it how many of us will accept a insult about our familly, our loved one. If the insult was directed to ZZ himself I’m sure he was accepted, but if it was directed to his mother, wife or kids, well done zizou.
ZZ still a getelmen that he didn’t headbut him on the face.

metarazzi is the villain, of cource. Zidane was the victim who retaliated. If you look at metarazzi’s record in Serie A, you’ll notice that he is a thug. Despite of the head-butt, Zidane is still a legend.